


the sun still rises and so does the moon

by writevale



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Buddy Aurinko is a wlw mom and you couldn't ask for a better one, Juno Steel behaves like an adult for once in his life, Juno and Peter are trying to work things out, Juno has a lot of history that just won't let him be, Kind of h/c but mainly Juno drawing some boundaries and learning to look after himself, M/M, Oblique spoilers for S3, She's also not Juno's therapist, We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23561059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writevale/pseuds/writevale
Summary: 'Pictures?''Yeah.' She looked at her hands. Juno hadn't seen his secretary this cowed since the very first day of them working together, when she thought he was going to fire her.'Of?''You. Uh. You and Diamond.'
Relationships: Past Diamond/Juno, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 21
Kudos: 231





	the sun still rises and so does the moon

**Author's Note:**

> title from rejazz by regina spektor

Juno folded and unfolded the sheet of paper in his hand as he set off on the short walk between his and Nureyev's rooms. The fluorescent lighting caught on some of the shakily-written lines which, in turn, caught Juno's eye. One in particular, _when you held my hand in Miasma's car_ , made his palms itch. Distracted and jittery, he almost walked right into Rita as she appeared suddenly in front of him.

'Whoa! Oh, Rita! What the hell?'

'Oh! He-ey, Boss.' Her voice caught on the greeting, drawing it out into a soaring and dipping note of anxiety. Juno's stomach went tight. Something had happened.

'Rita, what have you done?' She blinked behind her glasses, cat-eyes made large and owlish with her obvious apprehension. Juno noticed that her fingers were stained pink with dust from her favourite snacks. Her mouth twisted. 'Goddamnit, Rita! What is it?'

'I don't want you be annoyed, okay?' She garbled, 'It's just - you know - well, actually, I don't think you will know because you literally stop listening every time a computer is mentioned, but I've been trying to clear some space on the hard drive of the computer I brought with us from the old office because - don't get me wrong, Mr Steel, I am very grateful to be working with such high-level tech - but the computer here on the ship doesn't actually have much storage and, ugh. Anyway, so I was deleting some files, you know, the hours of stream series that I'd saved in case you got moody and turned the web access off, stuff like that, and I - I came across some pictures.' Juno's brain, mostly still lost in the memory of the cool slide of Peter's fingers between his, took a second to catch up.

'Pictures?'

'Yeah.' She looked at her hands. Juno hadn't seen his secretary this cowed since the very first day of them working together, when she thought he was going to fire her.

'Of?'

'You. Uh. You and Diamond.'

Juno's breath left him in a whistle. Rita might as well have just punched him in his barely-healed stab wound. 'Have you deleted them?' His voice sounded far away, like he was standing at the mouth of a long, dark tunnel and his words were coming through from the other end.

'No, I wanted to ask you first.'

'I-' Juno's voice cracked, he looked down at his hands and realised he was still holding the stupid list of things that he wanted to talk about with Peter. He pocketed it quickly. 'I thought I'd got rid of all of them.' He whispered. Rita smiled, soft and sympathetic and laid one of her small hands on his forearm.

'You're really bad at computers, Boss.'

***

Juno leant forward and grimaced as the tears that had been pooling in his empty eye socket spilled out onto his cheeks. They were cold and weirdly viscous.

'You're a fucking mess, Steel.' He told himself, looking up through his blurry remaining eye at the picture on the screen. In it, Diamond had an arm around Juno's waist and this near-unrecognisable baby Juno Steel was gazing up at them like they held all the sunsets in the Universe in their smile. He clicked to the next one, a shot of a dimly lit dancefloor. Juno recognised it as one of the HCPD Balls and soon spotted himself, resplendent in a dress he'd barely been able to afford, held tight in Diamond's arms, their lips pressed against his forehead. _God_ , the pair of them had looked good together.

He reflected on how, finally, he'd become someone that Diamond would have been able to stay for, someone who thought about his family without smashing anything, who gave honest answers about how he was feeling. The thing was, Diamond wouldn't have been able to cope with any of the events that had shaped him, often violently, into the person they wanted him to be. They -

His musings were interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open. He wiped his wet cheeks quickly, sniffling, and felt a wave of relief all the way to his stomach as he looked up and saw it was Buddy and not Nureyev whose heels were clicking towards him. Her fiery hair was pinned back into an elaborate twist that covered most of her face and the revealed eye softened immediately as she took in the state of him.

'Oh, darling.' Juno tried to speak but couldn't manage anything more articulate than a croak so he settled for sniffing pathetically as Buddy pulled up a chair next to him and sank into it gracefully. 'This must have come as quite a shock for you this evening.'

'Ya think?' Juno bit. He coughed, guilty with his prickliness. Buddy ignored him, raising her chin towards the screen and nodding.

'Show me.' She said.

Juno clicked through the next few pictures. Him and Diamond at various social events, looking for all of Mars that they were happy and in love and not like they'd had a massive row before heading out. Juno huffed as he clicked to the next picture.

'They were furious at me that night.'

'Why?'

'Oh, I barely even remember, I probably said something stupid.' He cleared his throat. 'Where's Rita?'

'She's been guarding the door, dear.' Something in Juno's chest seized tight and then softened at the thought. He'd gone to Rita's the night that Diamond left, drunk and screaming. She'd held him so tight. And here she was, guarding him still. He turned to look at Buddy and found that her visible eye was fixed on the screen, scrutinising the lines of Diamond's face. 'Juno, a reminder.'

'What?'

'I am not-'

'My therapist, yeah. You keep saying.'

She smiled, somehow cunning and benign all at once. 'Regardless, I do have a question for you.' Juno sighed and rubbed his eye. 'Do you think they were the love of your life?'

She left him to stew on that and he heard her murmuring something soothing to Rita outside before clicking away down the corridor. He scrolled through the rest of the pictures with a kind of determined melancholy, bone-tired from crying but not giving in completely to the old ache in his chest.

He found Rita leaning against the wall outside, tapping rapidly on her comms. She lit up as the door slid open, eyes roaming Juno's face, taking in the bags under his eyes, and immediately stepping into his open arms. She squeezed him viciously tight, once again exorcising the pain of Diamond from his body and, for once, he squeezed back.

'Thanks.' He choked, voice rough. 'I want you to delete them.'

'Mhm.' Rita's voice sounded wobbly as he released her. He found the courage to look straight into her watery eyes. 'Sure, Mr Steel.'

***

He paused at Nureyev's door for a long time. He was aware of the list in his back pocket, burning a hole through his shorts, but everything on it seemed so ridiculous in the shadow of the memory of how much it fucking hurt to love someone the best you could and then lose them anyway. Juno had done that to Nureyev. No, worse, Juno hadn't even given the man a chance.

The door slid open before Juno could made the decision to knock. Nureyev stood there, skin so very pale and hair glinting like he was caught in a moonbeam. His eyes widened as he took in the unexpected guest at his door.

'Juno?' He caught the tie of his robe and retied it tighter around his waist. 'I thought that maybe you weren't coming.'

'No, I -' Juno didn't even know where to start. He rubbed his eye again, the salty tears having left his skin puffy and itchy. He sighed, 'Can I still come in?'

'Of course, Juno. Of course you can.' Nureyev stepped back with a sweeping gesture. Like a very _attractive_ and delicious-smelling concierge showing Juno to his room. There was something soft in his voice, as though he couldn't quite believe that Juno thought he'd ever deny him.

Juno showed himself into the chair that he was starting to think of as his own and tucked his knees up under his chin. He saw Nureyev cast a wary, almost disapproving look at Juno's boots on the upholstery but he said nothing, instead, gesturing to the pair of glass tumblers he'd laid out on his shelf. Juno shook his head.

'I-' He trailed off. Started again, 'I don't think I - I don't think we should do this tonight.' Peter sat down on his crisp sheets very carefully. He surveyed Juno with his pale, shimmering eyes and Juno let it happen. A small crease appeared between Nureyev's eyebrows.

'Are you okay, Juno?'

'No - ah - no. Not really.' He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, trying not to notice the way Peter's eyes fell on the bulk of his triceps. 'Rita caught me on my way here. That's why I'm so late.' He paused. 'Sorry.' Peter tilted his head. The movement reminded Juno of some kind of bird, curiously trying to suss him out. He took it as a sign to continue. 'She's been clearing out some old files and came across some old pictures of me and, uh, my ex. Ex-fiancé.' He coughed. Peter's face remained carefully neutral and Juno wished he'd taken him up on the offer of a drink. He didn't know what to do with his hands. 'I wanted to see them before she deleted them.' Juno couldn't help the way the words came out as an apology. As if having past loves was something that might sully Peter's opinion of him now. Granted, the last thing he wanted to do was make Peter think he was still hung up on someone who left over a decade ago but . . . _Get out of your head, Steel_.

'Goodness.' Peter didn't exactly looked surprised at the revelation - but, of course, Peter had researched him _thoroughly._ 'That - sounds . . . Rough. I understand why you might not feel up to talking tonight.' Juno looked down at his hands. 'Can I -?'

'No.' _Goddamnit_. Juno wouldn't even know what to ask for. He'd already turned down a drink and, besides, the thought of getting messy about Diamond in front of Nureyev tasted like bile. Peter went quiet.

'I do find, Juno, that occasionally, a short reflection on the past isn't always a bad thing. Even if it hurts.' When Juno looked up, Peter's lips were quirked into a rueful smile.

Juno inhaled shakily, 'We may look backward only to ensure we have not walked this path before.' He still had the Big Guy's words memorised. Peter's eyebrows lifted, revealing lines in his forehead that Juno couldn't help but love as fiercely as the rest of him.

'Who told you that?'

Juno spluttered, 'What? Is it so inconceivable that I'd come to that conclusion on my own?!' Peter's grin was razor sharp. Any other time, Juno would be in the mood to get cut with it.

'Yes, dear detective. Was it Jet?' Juno grumbled an affirmative and Peter laughed outright. 'Well,' Nureyev turned his pale gaze to the way the starlight through his window fell onto his sheets. He smoothed out a crease slowly and carefully. Juno watched the splay of his fingers. _Any other time_. 'You know where I am, Juno.'

'Yeah.' Juno's found his throat was suddenly dry. He swallowed and felt Peter's gaze on his neck. He stood slowly. 'Thanks.' Peter watched him stride to the door. Watched him pause before pressing the keypad to exit. Juno spun around on one foot, forgetting that that move was difficult with one eye, and grabbed the wall for support. If the crow's feet around Peter's eyes winked into existence, that was fine. 'I do have one thing to say, though.'

'Go ahead.'

Juno took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air until they started to burn. He imagined that the buoyancy of it might carry the words out of him. Peter stared at him, patience written into the shape of his lips. 'Nureyev, I -' Juno dared to believe that The Thief would still be there tomorrow, when he no longer felt like someone had taken a plasma knife to his chest and refused to patch him up. 'I don't think Diamond was the love of my life.'

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> also, writing in past tense when you usually write is present is so _fricken_ hard, goddamn!!


End file.
